


when the dust settles

by Nokomis



Series: when the dust settles [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 21:49:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/872311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nokomis/pseuds/Nokomis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world ends and Derek survives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when the dust settles

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here on tumblr](http://nokomiss.tumblr.com/post/54622516324/untitled-post-apocalyptic-ficlet), inspired by an image of Dylan O'Brien from the Maze Runner.

The werewolves survive. It’s not even a question.

The town crumbles around them, as they try to forge out a living. Derek’s loft becomes the central headquarters. As people on the outside of the pack fall, they slowly centralize. Become one.

Scott takes over as leader, but Derek doesn’t fight it. He’s good at surviving, but leading? Helping others do the same?

Scott’s the one they need.

*

It was sheer bad luck that the Stilinskis were gone when the dust came. Scott had been beside himself, the first month, before keeping themselves alive became more of a priority than mourning the dead.

Two weeks after the dust cleared to reveal the broken, ruined world they now inhabit, Scott tried to go find Stiles. He convinced Isaac and Allison to go with him, loaded up in Allison’s car and drove west.

They came back three days later, exhausted, bruised and with ghosts in their eyes. “The road… it wrapped in on itself," Scott tries to explain. “It’s impossible, but that’s what it did."

There’s no leaving town. Nothing left but to survive.  
*

Derek doesn’t actually expect to _miss_ Stiles, but…

He does.

Whenever Peter lets out a cutting remark, Derek’s eyes dart over, expecting to hear someone snark back at him. Whenever Scott introduces a dangerous new plan to get food or supplies, he expects Stiles to bring up a better way to do it.

The dynamic is different, without him. 

*

It’s six months into the end of the world when Derek goes out running. There are parts of the preserve he doesn’t go to now, not even under the light of the full moon, because strange new things are lurking there. They scare him, deep in his animal-brain, and Derek knows to trust his instincts.

Today he goes to the burnt-out shell of his family’s house. It looks the same as it had before the dust, one of the few things that does, but it had already been in ruins before that.

Someone’s sitting there, when he reaches the front of the house. Haggard and filthy, resting on a fallen tree.

Derek doesn’t recognize him, at first. His face is too serious; there are no smiles and easy jokes masking him now.

And then the features click into place, and someone else has returned from the dead.

"Stiles," he says, and his voice is shaky. Shakier than it should be. It’s been so long since something good happened, something that wasn’t just survival. 

"Still hanging around this wreck?" Stiles says. He’s trying to joke, trying to be light and the boy that Derek remembers, but time has stolen that. His voice is quiet and a little sad.

"How did you make it back?" Derek has a strange feeling in his chest, something light and bright. “Scott tried to go find you, but the roads…"

Stiles’ eyes shut for a moment, like he’s trying to hold in terrible memories, and he just says, “I found a way."

"Scott’s alive," Derek tells him, because he should know. “The pack has been staying in my loft. We’re trying… We’ve been surviving."

"You’re good at that, despite yourself." Stiles offers a crooked smile, and it’s close, so close, to an expression he might have had before. Wry and cutting. 

Derek takes in a deep breath. “I can take you there, if you want."

"Soon," Stiles says. He twists something in his hands, and Derek realizes for the first time that it’s a machete. He doesn’t smell blood, but there’s a strange dry scent, the same one he gets from the darkest parts of the preserve. Stiles’ body is honed now, sharp as the blade he’s carrying, and Derek knows he’s been doing more than just surviving.

Knows that things are going to change, are going to shift once Stiles gets back. Survival won’t be their number one focus anymore.

Fighting back will.

The light feeling intensifies, and Derek realizes it’s joy. Strange, wild joy, and before he can think about what he’s doing, he drops to his knees in front of Stiles, looks him in the eyes and wraps his hands around Stiles’, around the handle of the machete.

"Is it bad?" His eyes cut to the forest, and this time, he realizes that the darkness, the creeping strangeness that kept him from his own territory, is closer than ever.

"We can take it," Stiles says. His voice cracks a bit, on the word ‘we’, and Derek doesn’t ask. Doesn’t want to know who is lost forever, who is haunting Stiles.

Doesn’t think about where the Sheriff might be.

Derek leans forward, rests his forehead against Stiles’. Stiles lets out a tiny sigh, the first sign he’s shown that he’s relieved to be back, that he’s glad to see someone from _before_.

"It wasn’t the same, without you," Derek says quietly. It’s as close as he can come to the confession he wants to make.


End file.
